News MSI skips RDNA 4 and will not manufacture AMD Radeon 9000-series GPUs

No, only EVGA is (was) EVGA. MSI can be a try-hard, maybe even absorbing some of the former EVGA employees. Still, very different leadership, corporate structure, ethos, and so on.

Can't say I was really a MSI fan previously and definitely not now -- those that don't believe in and invest in diversity and choice in the PC ecosystem are as good as Apple wannabe's to me.

Admittedly, Sapphire, Powercolor, and XFX have all stepped up their Radeon game, resulting in stiff competition. Still, MSI would be one to compete.
 
My last two graphics cards are MSI with AMD GPUs. That would certainly be a top choice for me next time. But the move is not surprising. AMD has long implied sort of passing over this generation in favor of UDNA and Acer is taking up some of the limited market, so I can see why MSI thought it was a good generation to skip.

The surprise is that RDNA4 is quite competitive. It almost doesn't make sense that AMD isn't taking RDNA4 to the high end. Almost; it does make sense considering the limited foundry supply. AMD can make a lot more chips from the same number of wafers by not producing high-end chips. (Even Nvidia is doing this to an extent by releasing several models under the 5090 just weeks after the 5090.)
 
Must be hard to make a profit with the prices AMD is charging for chips.

One wouldn't expect a company to turn down profitable work making the next iteration of a product they have the means to produce.

It isn't like the AIB's are seeing any of those rebates for MSRP models.
I briefly noted some of this in the text. Imagine being MSI and asking AMD what the MSRP will be on RDNA4 GPUs. "We don't know yet." Why don't you know? "We have to see where Nvidia prices its chips and how fast they are."

So let's say AMD wants $300 per GPU plus VRAM (I have no idea if that's accurate) for Navi 48. Everything else — cooler, PCB, VRMs, etc. — maybe adds another~$150 to the cost. Again, this is just for illustrative purposes, I don't have hard numbers and am basically making these numbers up off the top of my head. The point is, if the total BOM for an RX 9070 ends up being $450, MSI would probably need for it to sell at retail for $650 or more to make it viable. Because distributors and retail outlets all want some margin as well.

If an AIB asks AMD about MSRP for the parts and gets "we don't know yet" as a response, that's incredibly problematic! And if the "break even" point for the RX 9070 is $550, that means MSI makes zero money off selling those cards, and probably zero money off selling 9070 XT at $600 as well. And by "makes no money" I mean that literally: There's no profit margin, and yet MSI would still need to pay for R&D and all its employees.

Most likely, there's still some margin left in whatever AMD and Nvidia are giving as MSRPs... but factor in the tariffs and that's not just gone, AIBs would likely be in the negative selling GPUs in the US at the stated MSRPs. AMD and Nvidia either need to raise MSRPs or lower whatever they're charging for the GPU core and VRAM. Either way, the current MSRPs seem to be entirely unsustainable.

Perhaps that's why AMD doesn't make reference MBA cards for the 9070 series? And Nvidia probably only makes a relatively small number of Founders Edition cards, which it could even sell at a loss just to create a "fake MSRP" that the AIBs then have to compete against. Because Nvidia at least is flush with cash and spending a few tens of millions isn't going to hurt.

Ultimately, the real MSRP will show up in the market. And right now, all indications are that the 9070 will be priced at $650+, 9070 XT at $750+, 5070 at $650+, etc. Hopefully that comes down in time, but the tariffs are going to make it very difficult for US buyers to find "MSRP" cards going forward as far as I can tell. Unless there are exceptions granted and deals struck, we could be in for some very painful pricing increases.
 
Dumb move on MSI's part, considering how well those cards have been received and are selling.
We don't actually know how well the cards of either vendor are selling. Thus far, every die that either vendor can procure is going onto a card and being sold, and lineups of both are widely out of stock and pumped well above MSRP. There are no stacks of unsold GeForce or Radeons sitting around anywhere. Current sales volumes are more down to who is getting more dies from TSMC than actual popularity, as supply is far, far behind demand.
 
We don't actually know how well the cards of either vendor are selling. Thus far, every die that either vendor can procure is going onto a card and being sold, and lineups of both are widely out of stock and pumped well above MSRP. There are no stacks of unsold GeForce or Radeons sitting around anywhere. Current sales volumes are more down to who is getting more dies from TSMC than actual popularity, as supply is far, far behind demand.
The more I think about it, the more I can only conclude that the current MSRPs are a bold-faced lie. I don't think AMD and Nvidia are being realistic about prices, in a post-tariffs world. And I'm not saying the tariffs are good or bad, but they are real. I get that the goal is to bring a lot of production out of China (and Asia, and Mexico, and... you get the point) but that will take some time to happen. And the net result will likely still be higher prices.

If AMD and Nvidia use the Arizona TSMC facility as an example, and it costs 20% more to do that? Well, if tariffs are 30%, it's a net 10% difference, but it's still 20% higher than the "fake MSRPs" that were set at launch. But let's just use the 30% for tariffs for a moment. (I think that's a reasonable estimate: 10% in January, then another 10%, and Mexico and Canada also got 25%, right? Whatever, it's not going to be 100% accurate data below, but let's continue...)

I've heard that some AIBs asked AMD/Nvidia to change MSRPs, but it didn't happen because "it would look bad" or something along those lines. If I were a business making a product and it costs $100 to make and sells for $200 at retail, that means maybe I charge $125 to a distributor, who charges $ 156 to a retail store, who then sells it to a customer for $195. We're all making 25% margins. If my costs then suddenly jump to $130? I'm not going to keep selling the part for $125. I'm going to increase that to at least $156 (and cut my margins to 20%). And let's say the distributors and retail stores do the same. So the distributor now charges $187, and the retail price increases to $225.

Now, let's just take those same 20% margins and try to apply it to graphics cards. AMD and Nvidia make a GPU and it costs them $300 (including memory). They sell that to an AIB for $360. The AIB adds $150 in cooling and PCB and such ($510 BOM), and sells the card to a distributor for $612, and then the distributor sells it to a retailer for $734 and the final retail price ends up at $880. That's a "healthy" profit margin, but the market probably won't support that. So cut the margins to 10%.

AMD/Nvidia make a GPU that costs $300 (again, including VRAM that they buy). They sell to an AIB for $330. AIB still adds $150 in PCB/etc. costs to get to $480. Sells to distributor for $528, who sells to retailer for $580, who sells at retail for $639. That's probably at least reasonably close to where the 5070 and 9070 land right now. And it's why $549 isn't actually a viable MSRP.

Now let's say the base price of the chip and VRAM increases by 30% because of tariffs. Now it costs $390 to make, and gets sold to AIBs at $429. Add in $150 plus 30% tariffs again and that takes the card to $624! Distributor pays $686 and retailer pays $755 and the customer pays $830. Oops. So much for that $549 MSRP!
 
It's an MSI and AMD thing not an MSI and Radeon thing. Look at laptops, motherboards, video cards and handheld you'll see the same thing happening. I think they only have around a dozen AM5 motherboard models with 800 series chipsets and some haven't really had retail availability.
 
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I would think that AMD and Nvidia would realize what they have to price at in order to make the business viable for the AIBs.

Ok, so, probably EVGA exiting suggests that Nvidia did not care. I'm not sure MSI becoming the "next EVGA" means that Nvidia will go any easier on them, but, my crystal ball is in the shop right now.

That said, I would think AMD would feel a lot more pressure to ensure that AIBs could viably make money off AMD cards, given their significantly smaller market share versus Nvidia.

As to tariffs, well, kind of on me for not keeping track of what happened when, but I wouldn't be surprised if AMD and Nvidia (and lots of other companies in other industries) assumed that the tariff threat was a bluff to force other types of concessions. I imagine (disclaimer: me with ZERO financial, economic, or executive level experience) that the topic came up, but with the perspective of "Guys, seriously, there's no way those tariffs will REALLY happen, right? I mean, it's not like we're living in 1828 anymore, right?"

(side note: I only accidentally discovered the Tariff of Abominations linked above while trying to look up a different tariff, and that story is a doozy!)
 
Welp, I won the Newegg shuffle lottery today and purchased a Gigabyte 9070 XT.

I wish I could be more excited, but it wasn't my first choice and a bit of a gamble. Reason being, I'm determined to build a water cooling loop and I only want a card that will have water block support. So, I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with this GPU, but maybe I will be pleasantly surprised and Alphacool (or someone) will announce cooling support for it soon 😕
 
Maybe they should go with a every other gen strategy? Do Nvidia this gen and AMD next gen. Back and forth.
Tell each chipmaker "You better perform good this gen or I'm going to other maker full time!"
 
Nvidia market share 90% AMD less than 10%... So easy to see why MSI did abandon AMD in GPUs...
But now, when Nvidia is not interested in manufacturing gaming GPU chips... who knows. If MSI will become back to UDNA generation. Depends on what Nvidia does... But for AMD 9000 series. MSI is late even if it would want to come back. Most likely they want to see if AMD manages to get 15% or more in market share...
 
Dont sully EVGA's name by implying that MSI can become them. Its insulting considering MSI's checkered past with anti-consumer behavior and shady review practices and ethics
I mean, everyone has a different experience, eh? I'm currently using a 14 year old MSI system as a backup PC that's still going strong. My wife is using a killer MSI laptop for work. I'm currently using and have had multiple MSI components in the past, and had nothing but an awesome warranty claim experience when I accidently fried two MSI GPUs simultaneously and they replaced them with no questions asked.

I actually seek out their products when it makes sense to do so.
 
MSI ended their relationship with AMD over poor sales a year ago. That is why there is no Gen 4 cards from them. It is as simple as that. This is actually hurting MSI and doing nothing to AMD. AMD can sell every chip they cut off of the wafer so any chips that they could have sent to MSI is going to their other AIB partners. Nvidia's GPU production is way down because they are using most of their TSMC production to make AI chips which are much more profitable. What that means for MSI is that their GPU sales are down because of Nvidia's paper launch and no supply from AMD.
 
It makes complete sense to me. If they're able to sell every nVidia card they make, it makes more sense to devote more production time to them since they can streamline their processes, increase their profits, not have to compromise their sales, and perhaps negotiate better deals with nVidia.
 
Not too surprising. Even as an AMD fan we all know many people will still choose Nvidia even if AMD has a better product at a cheaper price. They never really took AMD cards seriously anyways, their top end SKUs like the Suprim and liquid cooled version were for Nvidia cards only.